Is FRP beneficial to GAMEPLAY?

I think Brace should be added to Shwere panzer and FRP of OKW for more balance

Problem comes from over estimating this so called "pros".

I said that people would disagree on the value of the different points, so...

1- Strategic decision: is is "strategic" to ALWAYS build your tiers as SU/OH on the border of your base so you can reinforce while moving out or doing so while fighting? I want to put really huge emphasis on the ALWAYS part. When a decision ends up been a no brainer, there's no longer a tactical/strategic decision IMO.

I agree. Actually, that's something I also argued for when the change was made that some units would spawn from buildings and some people said that that would increase the strategic depth (while I felt it didn't add anything and actually removed the option to define where the units should spawn on maps that had more spawnpoints...).

Likely that the FRP currently is too much of a no-brainer (don't know, I don't play the relevant factions in teamgames and I would be too bad anyways). But than I'd consider that a balance thing, as apparently the cost or risk involved with setting up FRPs is not high enough in the current implementation.

Re 2 & 3: Well, true, but it requires some micro from your opponent, and even then you are most likely still going to hit something. I mean, it's not like the never worked...

Edit: Even if you can't hit the units themselves, but you still have e.g. the BG-HQ truck as target. Sure, the truck might be there even without FRP, but I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't be put that upfront anymore...

Re 4: Not 100% what you mean. It's not exactly like good players that pull of perfect moves never have to hard retreat, right? There is surely a tradeoff. Like, yes, of course, a player that gets one of his units suppressed should get punished. How much, though? Would a 2 minute retreat be sufficient? 5 Minute? 10 Minute? At what point does it get boring to wait? And yes, ordering your units around in whatever way is typically more fun than waiting for them to retreat/get healed/repaired and so on.

...and I guess everybody agrees with that (other than those that find diversity irrelevant). You sounded earlier like you meant that diversity has no quality whatsoever.

Either way, the poll is not about balance. And actually I think it is also not about diversity either (because it doesn't ask if they diverse way in which FRPs are implemented is beneficial to gameplay; ok, you could argue that having FRPs allows for more diversity in how they are implemented). My impression is that the question is more about if the mechanic of FRPs helps gameplay, regardless of which faction it has or how it is implemented in detail.

In the spirit of your signature, I'll start a list of pro's an cons.

Reasons why FRPs could be detrimental to gameplay:

• Promote blobbing
  
• Reduce the value of soft retreats
  
• Reduce the penalty for being suppressed
  

Reasons why FRPs could be beneficial to gameplay:

• Add a strategic decision (tactical in case of USF) on when and where to set up the FRP.
  
• Add a counterplay mechanic to blobs (force retreat, barrage FRP)
  
• More usefulness for static artillery
  
• Reduces downtime in a game
  

Feel free to add points to both lists.

Now, the thing is, we probably weigh the points above in a different way and thus come overall to a different opinion. For example, I personally (as stated before) am not convinced that "1: Promote blobbing" really is a thing and feel that the points in the second list outweigh the remaining points in the upper list. Other people value the points in the upper list more and thus come to the overall conclusion that FRPs are detrimental, and that's fine.

Nice post!

Sorry for the ambiguity. I can see why you interpreted it that way.


Yeah, the lists you made are valid and as you said it comes down to weight. I put a lot of weight on the blobbing and penalty reduction for being suppressed. I see those as core game features. What do you think?

D is interesting. For large maps, which are badly designed with lots of dead space - FRP would be beneficial. Though I'd prefer a map fix really.



Anyway, hard to find a definite answer to it. Was cool to read your post, thanks

Re 4: Not 100% what you mean. It's not exactly like good players that pull of perfect moves never have to hard retreat, right? There is surely a tradeoff. Like, yes, of course, a player that gets one of his units suppressed should get punished. How much, though? Would a 2 minute retreat be sufficient? 5 Minute? 10 Minute? At what point does it get boring to wait? And yes, ordering your units around in whatever way is typically more fun than waiting for them to retreat/get healed/repaired and so on.

I'm saying that FRPs are there to just circumvent the nature of big maps which on tops degrades the game into more spam/blob fest till one side has a big enough of momentum to overwhelm the enemy blob/army.

Retreat times to HQ are equal for everyone. I think the initial design for FRP was for factions with limited
stage powerlevels, tools or utilities to recover terrain after losing initiative. By taking a look at their vanilla release, you can see how much they have gain since then.
The one which makes little sense IMO is the UK one, unless the main design for it was to bring "balance" to 3v3+ and there you NEED a FRP.


Note that this is my critic to the current LIVE FRP model. I wouldn't mind a more proactive decision making around them.

For ex: wild idea for USF (OKW having a static med HQ makes it less flexible). Major setups a radio/beacon/whatever structure point as a FRP. Cost mp/extremely fragile. Now, the major get's an ability with a certain low cooldown (you can't mass retreat blobs) which forces single units to retreat to that point. Can't be cast on pinned/suppressed units nor while the major is under those effects as well. Range is big (50-60) enough for the unit to be on the backline without entering combat.

WITH THAT BEEN SAID, I DON'T THINK IT'S A BAD ELEMENT TO GAMEPLAY IF we are not hypocritical in saying that it adds strategical depth and embrace the fact that you like YOLO modes with lots of bashing heads to head and spamming of units n vehicles. Hey, i also like this type of gameplay from time to time.

This is a fair statement. I think it ads fun to the game in the right conditions, which is more or less what I think you said.

Maps are poo =(